Earning expectations

Would working in a different area of the chemical sciences affect your pay? Can you expect to earn more if you have a PhD or are a Chartered Chemist? Will taking a career break affect your career prospects? What could your salary increase to in the future?

To help us give you the answers to these questions and many more about salaries, pay and employment benefits, take part in our Pay and Reward Survey later this month. In this straightforward questionnaire we will ask you to provide information, in the strictest confidence, about what you earn and additional benefits you receive from your employer.

Why do we run the survey?

We run this survey, to provide an authoritative report on salaries in the chemical sciences. The data collected from your responses to the questions provides a valuable resource to our members, allowing them to benchmark their salaries. From planning future career options to contemplating a job change or negotiating a salary offer, the results are an extremely important tool for your career management.

The survey, previously known as the Trends in Remuneration, has a rich history; we have collected salary information from our members every two years since 1920. The results give us the ability to track trends in income of those working in the chemical sciences over time, allowing us to analyse changes in our field. The report is also used by influential employers in a wide range of sectors to benchmark salaries of professionally qualified scientists.

Why take part?

Contribution from our members into this survey is key to the quality of the data. The more responses we get to the survey, the more representative our data on pay and reward in the chemical sciences will be. And so we can provide our members with a more reliable resource to plan and manage their careers.

In addition to a written report, we will be providing members with access to an interactive tool which you can use to directly compare your salary against others, using criteria of interest to you; from age, gender and geographical location through to qualifications, employment sector and job role.

This year, we will also be giving all members who participate in the survey an exclusive opportunity to view the results before they become available to anyone else.

How to take part

We welcome input from members of all ages, career stages and membership categories, provided you are not currently an undergraduate student. Your responses to the survey will be collected in the strictest confidence and kept completely anonymous. To ensure this, we have partnered with external market research agency Research by Design, who fully comply with the Market Research Society Code of Conduct. We are confident in their work after they ran our Member Survey in 2013.

Research by Design will be sending out an email on our behalf during June, inviting you to take part in the survey. Your contribution to this survey is essential for us to provide our members with high quality, reliable and useful information on pay and rewards and we’d sincerely appreciate your support in responding to this year’s Pay and Reward Survey.

This year, we will also be giving all members who participate in the survey an exclusive opportunity to view the results before they become available to anyone else.